1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital content reproducing apparatus and, in particular, to a digital content reproducing apparatus which can protect rights relating to digital contents.
2. Background of the Related Art
Systems for distributing digital copyrighted works such as music, video, games and others via the Internet or digital broadcasting have recently been developed, and some of the systems face a stage of practical application. For a distribution of such contents, a method of controlling a content use for limiting reproduction frequency, transfer, and duplication of the distributed contents is also considered in view of copyright protection.
Under the conventional digital content distribution system, as is disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Application No. 08-54951, use conditions for a content used by each user are distributed to a user terminal together with the content, and the user terminal manages a use of the content based on the distributed use conditions.
For example, in the case where the user purchased a right to watch a movie “EIGA” for an hour, the user terminal receives a content of the movie “EIGA” as well as the use conditions indicating that “a user can watch the “EIGA” for an hour”, and manages a replay of the content according to the use conditions. In this case where the user terminal replays the content “EIGA”, the time taken for the replay is measured so that the use is prohibited when the total replay time has reached one hour.
However, the conventional art does not consider sufficiently the use control in a case where a content is composed of plural elements. This poses a problem that the content is not available against a user's will. To be more specific, for example, in a case of using the content consisting of tune data, lyric data, and image data of an artist, the user cannot replay the tune data which he or she desires to use the most since the right to use the content is completely expired due to the long browsing of the lyric data.